Chapter 11 |
Even if I was certain that the stocks would fall by ten percent tomorrow, it wouldn’t guarantee that the stock market would continue declining and stop the moment it hit negative ten percent. The market fluctuated randomly and could go from increasing by one percent to then falling by two percent. Following that, it could rise by two percent, then drop by three percent. In a second, the market could collapse from investor fears. That was why trading skills became more important than directing as the leverage ratio became higher.
If the leverage[1] was fiftyfold, the loss became fifty percent even if the product value fell only by one percent. Regardless of the final closing price, even a two percent drop in value would result in one hundred percent loss. Basically, this meant the loss of the entire investment. It was as simple and cruel as that.
I received an email from Jonathan who flew back to the U.S.
- Jonathan: You want to put up the entire four hundred thousand dollars into the fiftyfold leverage? Is it that you really trust me or do you not care because it isn’t your own money?
Fiftyfold leverage meant that we would be investing twenty million dollars. Our profits would be fiftyfold, and our losses would also be fiftyfold.
Nevertheless! There was one important point. The game could not be continued any longer if the temporary value of the product dropped by two percent. It was called margin call because the stock exchange market forcibly sold the product when a person ignored the warning. That was the greatest risk of the leverage effect.
Jonathan was a guy who had succeeded in having the best year of his life with his trading skills when the hedge fund union suffered in Hong Kong around October. If he believed in the trend that I had showed him, he would be able to survive in those rough waves. My answer had already been decided.
- Seon-Hu: Don’t be too suspicious of these trends. From now on, it’s up to you. I’ll be waiting for good news.
Jonathan had no idea that now was the only opportunity to mobilize fiftyfold leverage through stock index futures trading.
I met with Jonathan again at the Gimpo Airport on Saturday, June 14th. He flew back to Korea after notifying me that he had to meet me in person. He didn’t contact me at all the week prior, which was 9th to the 13th, and he showed up with a restless expression. He must have come as soon as he finished trading. He would buy and sell, then repeat the progress again and again. I knew how hard he worked to maximize profits within a set timeframe. Jonathan must not have slept for a week, and he seemed impatient as he looked around for me at the gate.
Our eyes met. Jonathan put forth every ounce of his energy and walked towards me. Then, he spoke a number instantly.
“Seven hundred,” he stated.
“Thank you for your effort,” I said.
“You’re not asking what that number means? It’s not a percentage. I’m talking about seven hundred fold! Two hundred and eighty million dollars!” Jonathan looked like he was running into a monster, and he hugged me with all his strength. He kept screaming ‘Jackpot! We have got to be insane!’, and, of course, we caught everyone’s attention from that frenetic display. I bowed to the approaching airport police and pried Jonathan off from me. In my memory, he wasn’t even this excited when he had received a challenger-box level skill from a master box. He hugged me again with his eyes glittering with madness, so I had to apologize to the police.
Jonathan was going through a million emotions that he had suppressed all week. Everyone kept staring at us when I dragged him out of the airport.
“Have you organized the positions?” I asked.
“Of course! Be happy, man!” Jonathan shouted with exhilaration. He had earned more than I expected.
“You finished exchanging the money for dollars, right?” I questioned.
Of course, he would have. That meant we took out two hundred and eighty million dollars from Thailand’s foreign currency reserve again. Dollars had become more valuable than gold. The amount we made was sufficient to impact the Thailand currency war. Thailand would declare its surrender to the hedge funds union on the upcoming 2nd of July, and the baht would plunge to the lowest level on that day. This was the previous history, but it could change due to our intervention. In other words, Thailand might surrender earlier. However, two hundred and eighty million dollars…
“Great job, Jonathan,” I said.
“That’s it?” He seemed to be offended.
“You did better than I expected,” I responded.
This was only possible for him as he knew the trends and had bet his entire savings on a thirteen-year-old Asian boy’s words. If it can be done well, I guess it could be considered a skill.
“Better than expected? All right, you can say that to me. However!” Jonathan raised his voice while scratching his head, “It’s seventy thousand percent. That’s an unprecedented earning rate. I turned four hundred thousand dollars into two hundred and eighty million dollars. I did! We did! We became major players with just one shot! I can’t believe this. This…this doesn’t make sense. What the hell did we do?” Jonathan sounded confused and was filled with mixed emotions.
“You should get some sleep, Jonathan,” I said.
“The most inexplicable one is you, Sun[ref]Jonathan calls Seon-ho ‘Sun’ because Sun and Seon are homonyms in Korean.[/ref] You’re a mystery. The most plausible explanation is that you’ve won the Chinese Mathematics Olympiad,” Jonathan shrugged.
“This is Korea, Jonathan. How long has it been since you last slept?” It looked like he wasn’t able to sleep on the flight.
“What do you mean? I’m already dreaming now,” he said. His red and inflamed eyes stared fixedly at me.
“Okay, calm down first,” I said while pressing down his shoulders as hard as I could.
He didn’t even complain of the pain. He was sitting down and looking up at me as he said, “I can’t have a heart attack in front of two hundred and eighty million dollars!”
***
“Mother, I’m going to sleep at Seong-Ho’s place. Father’s on a business trip, right? Lock up the door tight before going to sleep,” I said.
Seong-Ho was not a made-up name. In my previous life, he was one of my closest friends from middle school to high school. I would see his face in the same classroom when I went to school on Monday. At first, I was genuinely happy to see him again since he had disappeared from the Day of Advent.
But, I realized that we would never be close again when our eyes met again. To be honest, it would be more accurate to say that I had given up on going through the process to become his friend. Therefore, Seong-Ho actually existed but was an imaginary friend to me.
I hung up the pay phone and went back to the room. Jonathan only took a shower but wasn’t sleeping. He was in his bathrobe, and there were beer cans everywhere in front of him.
“Oh, my Sun!” Jonathan made me laugh by acting like he was greeting a goddess. It was hard to make me laugh.
“Are you seriously not going to sleep? We have tomorrow, which is a weekend,” I tried to calm him down.
“We belong to the hedge funds union, right?” He asked.
“...”
“When I exchanged the money, I felt like we were a hedge fund with just the two of us as the board! A hedge fund worth two hundred and eighty million dollars,” Jonathan was basking in the fact that we had joined in the currency war as one of the major players. As he said, it was more meaningful because we succeeded by using only his capital instead of managing the hot money of big investors.
“We were the owners of a hedge fund yesterday, and today, we’re millionaires. What a great night!” His face was filled with excitement.
“Come sit over here if you’re not going to sleep,” I said, and Jonathan did so gladly.
“Let’s assume that Thailand brings in a fluctuating exchange rate system[2],” I said.
Jonathan breathed in, and his eyes changed. He knew that Thailand would basically be surrendering if they did that.
“And let’s also say that on D-day, we bet all our funds to the highest leverage. There will be no rallies as the baht falls that day. It would free fall with no stops,” I said.
Jonathan hiccuped and waved his arms.
“You are betting over two hundred million dollars without a risk hedge? I’ve never heard anything more insane than that,” he was telling me the truth. No one had ever done this before. As he mentioned previously, no one could predict the stock market of tomorrow unless they were gods.
“How much do you think the two hundred million dollars would become?” I asked.
“...I have to do that? I can’t. Do you think the hedge funds union would stay still when two hundred million dollars are bet at the highest leverage for the baht drop?” He looked at me as if he couldn't believe what I said.
“So, we have to leave something for them. I’ve already told you that the war is theirs,” I said.
“If the D-day is wrong, we lose everything. Two hundred million…no, two hundred and eighty million dollars,” he refuted.
“So, you should go to sleep. We have to start creating data from tomorrow,” I continued on, “We just have to confirm how much we took out of the Thailand foreign currency reserve in percentages.”
“You make it sound so easy, but that’s hard to find out,” he said.
“Why do you think I said two hundred million dollars? Where do you think the other eighty million would go?” I asked.
“A…are you really thirteen?” He was stunned.
“You can contact the president of the Thailand Central Bank, right?” I questioned.
“You’re going to give them eighty million dollars just to take a look at their warehouse? Does that even work?” He didn’t seem to trust me, but it did work. I only needed to compare it to the July 2nd that was recorded in history.
“Jonathan, visit Thailand. It’s urgent,” I said.
“We’re going to be shot, the president and I. What if they refuse?” He asked.
Then, we would lower the leverage and set the date to July 1st even though the earnings rate would be lowered a lot.
“Eighty million dollars for letting us see a piece of paper in secret. Would you say no to that? Besides that, the eighty million dollars won’t be given to the president alone,” I explained.
“Then who?” he questioned.
“The president of Thailand Central Bank is a member of the royal family,” I said.
“That’s even more dangerous!” He shouted.
“I’m sure there are lots of backdoor attempts going on by other people. The royal family would guess that they would lose, and if they want to think about the future…they would accept the eighty million dollars,” I elucidated.
“So, you can estimate if you look at that paper?” Jonathan said while scratching his head.
“Yes,” I answered.
The hedge funds union would fight the war, and I would reap the actual benefits. However, the history of the financial crisis across Asia would not change to a great extent. The hedge funds would jump in with great eagerness since they had seen how luring the spoils were that had been taken away in front of their eyes. They would throw themselves harder at Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and South Korea.
“Sun!” Jonathan called my name out loud with a face mixed with thousands of emotions.
“1997 will be a glorious time for us. Let’s bet two hundred million dollars on it!” he shouted.
1. Leverage investing is a technique that seeks higher profits by using borrowed money ☜
2. an exchange rate system where a country’s currency price is determined by the foreign exchange market, depending on the relative supply and demand of other currencies ☜
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